1stMar, I just can't remember, but there wasn't much wind. It was really a great day for shooting. I'll be out in the workshop again this morning and I'll look at the groups again and see what notes I had made. One thing that I haven't mentioned is that I started the shooting comparison, stopped, made more bullets and started again. The results I've talked about were from the second pass. On my first pass, one of the weak points in this test (my shooting) gave me some problems. I was doing some outright crappy shooting, so I stopped, rearranged the bags, got more targets up, did a little dry firing, and restarted. I think I was rushing things, and that was exactly the wrong thing to do. Once I got past that, I felt that except for one or maybe two shots, I did everything as well as I could and that the comparisons between groups were therefore fair. After all the yapping I've done about doing this case sizing comparison, I admit that I got a little worried about whether or not the rifle and I were up to the challenge. I was not going to report any data unless I had confidence in it. Once past that shaky start, all has gone well.

I'm really itching to get my hands on the Lee collet and Redding bushing FL dies and do some more shooting.

603Country, One of the main reason for using bushing die here it is from Redding site.

A decapping pin retainer is also supplied with most Type S - Bushing Dies except 17 and 20 Cal. This enables neck sizing without the use of the size button for those who sort and/or turn case necks for uniformity.

You may or may not see any improvement in accuracy adjusting neck tension in a factory chamber but you may want to try that also.

What I do on all my new cases is use Sinclair expander mandrel in whatever cal I'm loading then use bushing die set neck tension. I also mike neck thickness after few firing that can change effect bushing size also.

Sorry for not seeing your questions till now. I got both dies (gave em to myself for Christmas), but then my grandkids gave me a non-traditional Christmas present. They gave me the nastiest, meanest chest cold I can ever remember. I'm still struggling with it, and I'm feeling pretty darn puny, and thank goodness I have plenty of football to watch. I'm so weak that my wife had to help me pull kleenex out of the box the other day, and it took me 3 tries to tear toilet paper. So anyway, it'll be another week or so before I really feel up to doing all the loading and shooting. And I've made a few planned changes to the testing. I'll shoot 15 round groups (maybe 20 rounds), but I'll use the 40 grain Nosler BT instead of the 65 gr Sierra GK. The Nosler shoots a bit better and I have a whole lot of them. I don't plan to shoot the mixed headstamp/non-prepped cases again, since I think I learned what I needed to know, in that it shoots pretty good, but not as good as the fully prepped and sorted cases. And I'm going to skip the partial resizing section of the test, because the 223 case (in my hands and in my experience) doesn't partial resize well because the case isn't tapered enough and partial resizing causes the shoulder to be pushed out. So, unless someone talks me into doing more than the following, here's the plan: Full Length sizing with a Redding non-bushing die; neck sizing with a Redding standard neck sizing die; neck sizing with a Lee Collet die; and FL sizing with a Redding full length bushing die. Now all I'll need is cool weather with low wind speed. And I'll need to quit coughing before I get to shooting. That'll throw a few fliers, for sure.

Since I haven't started all the loading and testing yet, if anyone has any reasonable suggestions about changes to my plan, please feel free to speak up. I'm doing this for me, but I might as well take the time and effort to make the results worthwhile and believable to you guys too.

Ideally what you want is a full length bushing die manufactured to your chamber, not SAAMI spec. My last 1000 yd rifle came with a set of dies custom made for that chamber. In essence, it is a full length sizing die that is doing nothing but neck sizing. When using off the shelf dies, I have seen very little (if any) accuracy gained by neck sizing, and I have seen a lot of reliability loss due to neck sizing.

Reynolds, if your die only sizes the neck, regardless of what it's called, it's a neck only sizing die. Full length sizing dies reduce body diameters and also move the fired case shoulder back a bit when used properly. Sizing dies with their body dimensions the same as the chamber and don't touch the fired case body or shoulder are made by people who do not understand how a bottleneck case headspacing on its shoulder fits the chamber and why a fired case's body has to be held rigid in place while the neck's sized down to keep the case neck well centered on the case shoulder if best accuracy is the objective. You are only neck sizing your cases with that die. How it differs from other neck sizing dies is not known to me.

If that die sizes cases that produce better accuracy than some other neck only sizing die, there's some other reason that has nothing to do with the fact that its body dimensions are the same as the chamber body the fired cases come out of. Note that fired cases are a thousandths or so smaller than the chamber they come out of, so their body and shoulder will never touch your custom die's body nor shoulder; it's just another version of a neck only sizing die.

Virtually all the benchresters gave up on neck only sizing some years ago and have switched over to the full length sizing dies with bushings of the correct diameter for their case necks. Such dies keep the case neck well centered on the case shoulder but size the case body and neck down very little and set the fired case sholder back a thousandth or so. Sierra Bullets was probably the first place where enough proper tests were made with various sizing dies and techniques (including all sorts of neck only sizing dies) back in the 1950's. They've been using off the shelf commercial full length sizing dies ever since; nothing else sized cases good enough dimension wise to shoot their bullets into the smallest test groups. Nowadays, they use Redding full length bushing dies or standard full length sizing dies on their fired cases to resize them. Those dies work the same way and use the same bushings as the ones made by RCBS.

Therefore, 603country, I highly discourage your from coveting a die whose body dimensions equal your chamber in that area. Get a full length bushing die from RCBS or Reddingf then learn how to set it up correctly in your press. Then you'll be sizing fired cases the best way for best accuracy.

__________________
US Navy Distinguished Marksman Badge 153
Former US Navy & Palma Rifle Team Member
NRA High Power Master & Long Range High Master
NRA Smallbore Prone Master

As stated above, I now have the Redding FL bushing die (and the Lee Collet Die). Never having used either one of them before, I am expecting to have to do some drastic things (read the instructions) to use them properly.

The custom Reddings seem to work on that rifle. They are full length sizing dies. They just do not size to Saami spec for full length size. They size a miniscule amount smaller than an exact copy of the chamber. They size slightly sticky. A neck sizer sizes very sticky after a few rounds or reloading. Running much higher pressure than I would run in my 100/200 yard rifle.

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